Tag: palestinians

Posted on

Oslo at twenty-four – Failing the “crystal ball” test

If Rabin had a crystal ball that allowed him to foresee the terrible trauma and tragedy the Oslo Agreements would cause, there is little doubt that he would have never agreed to its signature.

We have come to try and put an end to the hostilities, so that our children, our children’s children, will no longer experience the painful cost of war, violence and terror. We have come to secure their lives and to ease the sorrow and the painful memories of the past to hope and pray for peace.  – Yitzhak Rabin at the signing ceremony of the Oslo I Accords, Washington, D.C. September 13, 1993.

This September marked the passing of 24 years since the signing of the Oslo Accords. Although little is left of the heady—the less charitable might say, “irresponsible”—optimism that accompanied the signing ceremony on the White House lawns on that fateful day in September 1993, the “two-states-for-two-peoples” format it forged, still – inexplicably—dominates the discourse as the sole principle upon which a resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict can be based.

Puzzling and Perturbing

Future historians will doubtless find this both puzzling and perturbing—for although the two-state formula has been regularly disproven, for some unfathomable reason, it has never been discredited—and certainly never discarded.

In many ways, the continued “durability” of the Oslowian “recipe” is astonishing.

Indeed, it is difficult to imagine what else should happen, what further disaster should befall both Jew and Arab, for it to be abandoned as the abject failure it has incontrovertibly proved to be.  

After all, when the Oslo process was first instituted there were proponents and opponents –with the former promising sweeping benefits (such as peace, prosperity and a thriving harmonious Mid-East stretching from Casablanca to Kuwait), while the latter warned of dire dangers (such as spiraling terror and pervasive turmoil).

Now, almost a quarter-century later, one might have been forgiven for thinking that “the jury was no longer out”. For one thing is indisputable.  None of the benefits promised by proponents have materialized, while virtually all the dangers warned of by the opponents have befallen the strife-torn region and its unfortunate inhabitants.

Yet stubbornly—indeed, obsessively—two-staters cling to the tenets of their political dogma—no matter what the human cost; no matter how much evidence of their tragic error continues to inexorably accumulate…

Hardly a revolutionary revelation

Sadly, this is hardly a revolutionary revelation. To the contrary, it has long been starkly apparent to anyone with a smidgeon of intellectual integrity.

Indeed, seventeen years ago, just weeks after the Palestinian-Arabs launched their gory wave of violence (a.k.a. the Second Intifada), an article of mine appeared on Israel’s most trafficked Hebrew-language site, YNet.  It was entitled “The Crystal Ball”. The sub-headline read:   “The Oslo process and its basic assumptions have failed the test of reality”.

In it, I wrote: “Up until a few weeks ago, there might have been room for a debate on whether the Oslo process was a success or a failure. Up until a few weeks ago it might have been possible—albeit with great difficulty—to understand those whose faith in the “process” had not yet faded. But now [i.e. November, 2000], the debate is over! Now it is quite clear that the “political process: has totally failed.

“When,” I asked “should one conclude that one’s chosen path is mistaken?”; and in response, suggested that:  “As a general rule, one should admit that one’s chosen policy has failed if one would not have chosen it, had the consequences of that choice been known beforehand”.

Failing the test of reality

I then proposed: “… let us imagine that on that fateful day in September 1993, on which the Oslo agreements were signed, the people of Israel and their leaders had at their disposal a crystal ball by means of which they could foresee the future consequences of those agreements. Let us imagine that the architects of those accords, who…promised the nation the dawn of a new era…of ‘days without worry and nights without fear’, could foretell the fate of the country almost eight years after the pomp and ceremony of the occasion of their signature”.

I continued: “Let’s suppose that they would have known that almost a decade after the sweeping concessions that Israel was called on to make…the country would be plagued by fire, hatred and death, and that the guns, handed to the Palestinians, despite repeated warnings not to do so, would be turned against our soldiers, our women and our children. Let’s suppose that they would have known that despite our far-reaching willingness to accommodate our adversaries, our political situation in the world would be at its lowest ebb…”

I therefore, ventured to postulate: “I have no doubt that had the architects of these accords known that events would turn out as they have, they would not have signed them.  I have no doubt that had the public foreseen what has come about it would not have given its support to the process or to its initiators. Accordingly, we can categorically declare that the Oslo process, and the world view on which it was based, have utterly failed the ‘crystal ball test’ i.e. failed the test of reality.”

Despite expectations…

In light of all this, I expressed what appeared to be a reasonable expectation: “…that, given the appalling consequences the political processes had precipitated, there would have been a wholesale abandonment of it by its [hitherto] supporters.

“However,” I lamented, “this was not the case. Despite the fact that not even a miniscule trace of any residual success could be found, a significant number of people…still refuse to acknowledge failure or error.  ‘There is still no other alternative’ they recite with dogmatic obstinacy.”

Of course, as I pointed out “, there is in fact no claim more baseless than the claim that there is ‘No alterative’”  Indeed,  as I underscored–“the burden of proof is now on the proponents of the Oslo process rather than on its opponents  to prove that they have a viable alternative…”

Moreover, had the imaginary 1993 crystal ball been able to look further into the future, what it would have revealed to the prospective signatories  of the ill-fated accords would have hardly been more encouraging.  Indeed, if anything quite the opposite is true!

Thus, for the five years after the publication of  the “Crystal Ball” article,  the carnage of the “Second Intifada” raged across the country,  with thousands of Israeli civilians being murdered and maimed—in shopping malls, on buses,  in street cafes and crowded restaurants.

What the crystal ball would have revealed…

Indeed, it was the bloody Passover massacre in March 2002 at the Park Hotel in the seaside resort of Netanya that led to Operation “Defensive Shield”, the first of a series of punitive military campaigns launched by the IDF when Palestinian-Arab terror reached unacceptably murderous levels, which the Israeli military was compelled to quell.

The ensuing decade was replete with recurring bloodshed. Thus, as the savage violence of the Second Intifada petered out in 2005, the very next year, 2006, heralded the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War.

Admittedly, the Second Lebanon War was not directly connected to the conflict with the Palestinian-Arabs. However, its roots can definitely be traced to the Oslowian land-for-peace mindset, when in June 2000,  Ehud Barak, capitulated to pressures from left-wing activists and surrendered South Lebanon to the Hezbollah by ordering an ignominious unilateral evacuation of the IDF.

Indeed, this unbecoming retreat has been widely identified as one of the major causes for the Second Intifada three months later (see for example here and here).  Thus, in the words of one pundit “the message of weakness transmitted by the retreat from Lebanon encouraged the Palestinians to return to using violent methods.”

Barak’s abandonment of South Lebanon led to Hezbollah’s massive military buildup in the vacated territory, eventually culminating in the costly 2006 Second Lebanon War, whose mismanagement by the Olmert government allowed South Lebanon to become a fearsome arsenal—with over a 100,000 rockets and missiles, trained on Israel’s major civilian population centers and vital infrastructure installations, as well as the additional threat of trans-border attack tunnels.  

From “Cast Lead” to “Protective Edge”

It is of course an open question whether the Second Lebanon War in 2006 was due, at least in part, to another  unilateral  withdrawal—the  so-called “Disengagement” from Gaza in 2005.  There can however be little doubt that the Disengagement did lead to the Islamist takeover of Gaza in 2007, when in the wake of the power vacuum created by the IDF’s departure, the fundamentalist Hamas seized control of the coastal enclave, violently ejecting Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction.

In the wake of Hamas’s ascendance, there was a massive increase in attacks against Israel, with thousands of rockets, missiles and mortar shells being fired at civilian targets.  As a result, Israel was compelled to take action to restore stability and security for its citizens—which resulted in the first of three (and counting) post-Oslo IDF campaigns against Gaza, Operation Cast Lead in December 2008.  As a result of its military response to the ongoing terror attacks Israel was vilified in the international arena, particularly by the notorious Goldstone report , manufactured by a UN “fact finding” mission, which accused Israel of deliberately targeting Palestinian-Arab civilians, used by Hamas as human shields.

Continual escalation of terror attacks drew Israel in to two further military campaigns.  

Less than four years after the end of Operation “Cast Lead”, Israel was forced undertake Operation “Pillar of Defense” in November 2012, following an intensification of rocket fire aimed at Israeli population centers.  Then, barely eighteen months later, with the brutal kidnapping and murder of three Israeli youths, and indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza on Israeli civilian targets, Israel was again obliged to use the military to restore calm – this time in Operation “Protective Edge” during which the alarming extent of the terror attack tunnels, excavated by Hamas, was exposed…

On the Palestinian side…

On the Palestinian side, our crystal ball would have swiftly dispelled the rosy predictions of a peaceful, prosperous EU-like Middle East stretching from the Sahara Desert to the Persian Gulf, that the Oslo Accords were supposed usher in.

Setting aside the rape, arson, slaughter and misery that raged across the post-Oslo Middle East as the chill winds of the Arab Spring swept through country after country, the Oslo accords brought scant benefits to the Palestinian-Arabs.

Indeed for the average man in the Palestinian street, Oslo wrought penury, not prosperity; despotism not democracy. After almost a quarter century since the ceremony and fanfare on the White House lawns, all the Palestinian-Arabs have to show is a an untenable    and strife-riven entity, with a dysfunctional polity and a collapsing economy – with a minuscule private sector and a bloated public one, wracked by corruption, and crippled by cronyism, manifestly unsustainable without massive infusions of foreign funds and the largesse of its alleged “oppressor”, Israel. 

In Gaza, where the experiment of Palestinian self-government was first instituted, the situation is particularly dire, with the specter of “humanitarian disaster” hovering over the general population. Awash in untreated sewage flows, with well over 90% of the water supply unfit for drinking, electrical power available for only a few hours a day and unemployment rates soaring to anything between 40-60%, Gazans, too, have good reason to rue the day the Oslo agreements were signed.

If Rabin had a crystal ball…

So if Yitzhak Rabin had had a crystal ball in September 1993,the depressing chain of events that would have unfolded before his eyes as he peered into the milky surface of the glass orb would be this:

A quarter century of spiraling terror  in city streets, buses, and cafes;  thousands of his countrymen maimed or murdered, four (arguably, five) military campaigns with hundreds of casualties, the dramatic enhancement of the quality and quantity of the weaponry of the terror organizations ranged against Israel; the huge cost of the barrier being constructed, high above and deep below, ground, to secure Israeli civilians from terrorist infiltration and tunnels…

So if indeed, Rabin could have foreseen that all this would be Israel’s lot in exchange for the gut-wrenching and perilous concessions the agreements called on it to make, who could doubt that he would never have affixed his signature to them…

Surely then, this—the Crystal Ball Test—is the ultimate indictment of the Oslo Agreements. Surely, it is time, after a quarter-century,  for them—and all that they stand for—to be branded what they indisputably turned out to be –a colossal and tragic blunder  of historic proportions—and to be treated as such.

Posted on

ERDOGAN’S GENOCIDAL INCITEMENT

Funding Palestinian Jew-hatred.

Turkey’s dictatorial president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent efforts to mediate between the Saudis, their Arab Gulf allies and Egypt on one side versus his Qatari ally (both are staunch supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood) on the other, have failed to materialize.  At the same time, his war of words with Germany, and the European Union’s cold shoulder, has left the arrogant Erdogan with one avenue to make headlines – incite Muslims against Israel.  His crude anti-Semitic incitement has gone hand-in-hand with his posturing as the leader of the Sunni-Muslim world.

Erdogan has called on Muslims to show solidarity with the Palestinians by flooding Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.  He has used invectives against Israel with such words as “racist and discriminatory.” This comes after the Israeli government backed away from a confrontation with the incited Muslim community, and ordered the removal of the metal detectors and security cameras.  The Israeli actions followed a week of Palestinian rioting, and the murders of three Israeli family members by a Palestinian terrorist.  Erdogan declared that, “In our religionand historical responsibility for Al-Quds and the fight of our Palestinian brothers for rights and justice is of great importance to us.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry was quick to respond to Erdogan’s repeated incitement (he previously ranted about a proposed bill that would ban the religious institution from using loudspeakers. Switzerland already banned loudspeakers in mosques.) It called Erdogan’s comments “baseless slander,” adding that, “anyone who systemically violates human rights in their own country should not preach about morality. It’s absurd that the Turkish government, which occupies Northern Cyprus, brutally represses the Kurdish minority and jails journalists, should lecture Israel, the only true democracy in the region. The days of the Ottoman Empire have passed.” The Foreign Ministry statement added, “Israel strictly adheres to protecting full freedom of worship for Jews, Muslims, and Christians – and will continue to do so despite this baseless slander.”

Build Jerusalem Fund

Erdogan’s incendiary remarks, in a speech to his party’s parliamentary group in Ankara, stated, “When Israeli soldiers recklessly pollute the grounds of Al-Aqsa with their combat boots by using simple issues as pretexts and then easily spill blood there, it is because we [Muslims] have not done enough to stake our claim over Jerusalem.” Turkey’s Erdogan is currently the chairman of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Clearly, in Erdogan’s mind, Jews and Israelis are merely dhimmis who should be disciplined by the Islamic Empire, and he considers himself a ‘Sultan’ of sorts.

Israeli political leaders reacted this time to Erdogan’s incitement with unsuppressed anger. Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin said, “We have heard voices which attack Israel for building Jewish life in Jerusalem. I must tell these people: For the last 150 years there has been a Jewish majority in Jerusalem. Even under the Ottoman Empire there was a Jewish majority in Jerusalem. Under Israeli sovereignty we continue to build Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people.”

Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, went even further in responding to Erdogan’s charges saying that, “Turkey ruled Jerusalem for 400 years under the Ottoman Empire.  It is surprising that Erdogan, who leads a state that occupied Jerusalem for 400 years, wants to preach to us about how to manage our city.  Unlike, during the Turkish occupation, Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty is a flourishing, open, and free city that allows freedom of religion and worship for all.  In recent years, record numbers of Muslims have visited the Temple Mount and held prayers, exercising their absolute freedom of religion under Israeli sovereignty.”  Barkat added, “The connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem dates back more than 3,000 years.  Jerusalem is and will remain, our eternal united capital forever. In every corner of the city, we see Jewish roots – from the time of the First and Second Temple to the Muslim period and the Ottoman conquest.”

Israeli Knesset (Parliament) Speaker, Yuli Edelstein, said, “As long as Erdogan is Turkey’s leader, ties will not be back to what they were.”  Ex-Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon was more adamant, saying that “Erdogan aspires for there to be Muslim Brotherhood hegemony in the Middle East, and is working toward an Islamic Europe. This should be surprising only to those who ignore the facts.” Former Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar, in an interview with 103FM Radio, stated that “We made a mistake by paying damages and apologizing for the Marmara incident.”

Erdogan’s latest attempt to scapegoat Israel with his Al-Aqsa speech comes after his failure to bring an end to the Arab Gulf crisis. In fact, Erdogan’s meddling on behalf of Qatar has cost Turkey a lucrative shipbuilding contract with the Saudis to sell four warships to the Saudi navy, worth $2 billion.  Erdogan’s expedited bill in the Turkish parliament to send Turkish soldiers to a Turkish military base in Qatar, doomed the prospects for expanding Turkish trade with the Arab Gulf states.

It was not only in the Middle East that Erdogan suffered a significant setback…he recently created a crisis with Germany as well. The relationship between the two countries had already soured.  Last March, the German government refused to allow Erdogan and his ministers to hold election campaigns in Germany.  In response, Erdogan accused the German government of implementing “Nazi practices.”  Turkey’s refusal to allow German parliament members to visit their contingent at the Incirlik air base led Germany to move its soldiers to Jordan. Things deteriorated further when the Turkish government arrested a Turkish-German journalist reporting for the German newspaper Die Welt on phony charges, alleging support for a terrorist organization.  Germany also provided political asylum for Turkish generals. Erdogan is holding German nationals in detention as a bargaining chip.

Erdogan’s spat with Israel didn’t advance his standing with Germany, the European Union or with the Arabs.  His anti-Israel and anti-Semitic tendencies were already on display in January, 2009 at the Davos, Switzerland World Economic Forum. At a panel discussion, Erdogan walked off the stage in protest because the moderator ended the discussion.  Yet he managed to say to the late Israeli President Shimon Peres, “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill.” He was referring to Israel’s campaign in Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’ missile attacks on Israel. Peres responded by saying Turkey would have reacted the same way had rockets been falling on Istanbul. In May, 2010, a Turkish organized flotilla attempting to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, resulting in Israeli commandos boarding the Turkish Islamist lead ship, the Navi Marmara. Nine violent Turkish Islamists died in the confrontation with Israel, which the Turks provoked.  Erdogan called for Israel to be punished for its “bloody massacre.”

Erdogan assumed dictatorial powers following an April referendum in Turkey, and has jailed at least 47,155people without charges in the wake of last year’s failed coup against his continued rule. A consistently bellicose supporter of the Palestinians, Erdogan has frequently made anti-Semitic remarks, along with veiled threats to the Turkish Jewish community.

Erdogan is providing money to Palestinians to continue their violent demonstrations against Israel, allegedly to “defend” Al-Aqsa. This is a dangerous game the megalomaniacal Erdogan is playing in order gain influence with the Arab masses, ultimately, at the cost of Palestinian and Israeli blood.

Originally Published on FrontPageMag.

Posted on

UNESCO, “Palestine,” and the Erasure of Indigenous History in the Land of Israel

On Friday, UNESCO voted in a secret ballot to declare that Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarch is actually an Islamic and Palestinian Word Heritage site. This vote disregarded the Jewish connection to the city and the Cave of the Patriarchs entirely.

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s Minister of Education responded with the following:

“The Jewish connection to Hebron goes back thousands of years. Hebron, the birthplace of King David’s kingdom, and the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the first Jewish purchase in Israel and resting place of our forefathers – are our people’s oldest heritage sites,” he said. “Unesco’s resolution must be rejected, and our efforts to strengthen the city of our fathers increased,” he added.”

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN slammed the decision as well.

“The UNESCO vote on Hebron is tragic on several levels. It represents an affront to history,” Haley said in a statement. 

“It undermines the trust that is needed for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to be successful,” she said. “And it further discredits an already highly questionable UN agency. Today’s vote does no one any good and causes much harm.”

“The United States is currently evaluating the appropriate level of its continued engagement at UNESCO.”

In order to fully understand where to go from the UNESCO travesty, one must understand the partnership the agency and the Palestinian as well as the broader Islamist goals are in Israel and beyond.

The Palestnians were created in 1964 by Yasser Arafat when the Arab world realized they needed some sort of indigenous claim to the Land of Israel, as their broad claim of Zionist colonization failed to make any imprint on a post World War Two Europe and America.

So, in a strategic switch the PLO was born and somehow rewrote history in a bid to claim the mantle of the truly indigenous people belonging to the Holy Land. In 1967, when the Jewish people liberated the heart of their homeland in Judea and Samaria as well as the Golan, Gaza, and Sinai, the newly created “Palestinians” claimed their Land was being colonized even more.

Of course, history shows this is all nonesense as the influx of today’s Palestnians came in waves and usually mirroried Jewish immigration to the Holy Land.  In the 1860’s according to Turkish records the majority population Jerusalem was already Jewish. Beyond Jerusalem, the ancient cities of Sefat and Tiberious had Jewish populations as well as Hebron’s Jewish community that went back well over a thousand years before the Muslum conquest.

This is not to say there were no Arabs, there were. Many of these Arabs came from Syria and even Chechnya or Turkey. A small minority of indigenous Arabs lived in the Southern Hebron Hills, most likely dscended from Jews who vere forced to convert around the 9th and 10th centuries.

It was not until the early 1900’s that Turkey began to encourage intra-migratrion within its empire as to offset the growing Jewish population.  By the time the British took over the Holy Land and renamed it Palestine, the Arab population had artificially exploded.

The Palestinians have no indigenous culture.  They, like the broader Islamist movement sees others’ indigineity as an emotional affront to their lack of historical claims here in the Land of Israel and elsewhere.  Instead of accepting history, they have learned that they have willing partners in the international community that will simply help them appropriate it.

Hebron is the earliest site of spiritual significance to the Nation of Israel and the Jewish people.  Allowing a group of clans that moved to the area relatively recently to claim historical connection to the site that was actually built by the King of Judea is absurd and renders their ability to detect right from wrong obsolete.  Of course, truth is not UNESCO’s or the Palestinian’s goal.

UNESCO believes it’s mandate is to encourage the appropriation of history so as to not be bothered by the Jewish people’s steadfast return and reclaiming that which is mandated by heaven as well as acquired here on earth. Afterall, for UNESCO, the Holocaust is but a distant memory; one where a European group called the Jews were sytematically murdered.

For UNESCO, these Jews are just Europeans with no historical orindigenous claims within the boundaries of ancient Israel. Of course, this is also a perversion of history Israel is made up of Jews of all backgrounds, with a majority from Arab lands. Not to mention, Jews of European descent can trace their origin back to Israel. Once again, history and truth has no place in UNESCO’s perception of reality.

The faster that Israel works to ensure that Hebron is an indisputable part of the State of Israel by providing easy access to its Holy Sites as well as encouraging continued purchasing of private homes by Jews within the ancient city, the faster the world will have to come to a conclusion that the Jews of old have actually returned to their forefathers’ Land.

Posted on

WORLD CHANGE: Why the Modi Visit to Israel is set to Radically Reshape the World

We are living in amazing times. History will show that this three-day visit by Neandra Modi to Israel was a moment in world history when two of the most ancient cultures decided to leave the prism of their past behind and work together in order to build a strategic partnership that would not only benefit one another, but the world.

Israel and India are thousands of years old.  Judaism and Hinduism are the two most ancient spiritual paths in the world. It is under this backdrop and the geopolitical turmoil in which we see the old power structure of the west and its colonial and neo-colonial influences collapse that these two countries have begun to rise.

Modi’s visit comes after more than a decade worth of growing ties between the two countries.  These political ties are built on the back of thousands of years of personal relationships between Jews and Hindus.  These relationships were built on respect of one another.  Jews have been living in India for more than 2000 years and during that time no tinge of anti-Semitism was expressed.

In a world that has seen the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the weakening of the post cold-war order these cultural ties have grown far more overt as more and more Israelis have spent time in India backpacking and taking a breather after the army.  Indians have taken the opportunity to visit the only Jewish State, to learn and admire another ancient culture.

Technology Partnership Built by the People

Israel, being the technology powerhouse it is has built many of its tech partnerships with other countries through government introduction.  With India it has been built by the people itself. Indian programmers have become the go to source for Israeli teams for the last decade.  Both groups have worked together on virtual teams and learned how to achieve success an ocean away.

It is no accident that as Prime Netanyahu said, “The two most spoken languages in Silicon Valley are Hebrew and Hindi.”

Strategic Importance

During Modi’s visit to Israel and after several closed-door sessions that lasted four hours each, the two countries elevated their relationship to a Strategic Partnership and signed seven MOU’s.  Beyond these developments as well as the announcement of a direct flight between Tel Aviv and Mombai/New Dehli, the partnership erases the false narrative of “Palestinian” indignity and rightful rebellion against the “Jewish Occupier.”

India has always been admired by third world countries in Africa and the Middle East as the leader against the International European colonial regime.  The Jewish State was seen as part of this unwanted colonial regime. With the growing ties and Modi’s about-face on Israel’s place within the broader neo-colonialist dynamic it is the Palestinians who have been exposed as the European tool to divide and conquer the Levant.  Afterall, the Palestinians are supported and funded by the EU.  It is also the Europeans who have bolstered Islamic regimes and totalitarian governments, which have burned a path through indigenous communities from Africa to the MIddle East, to the Indian Sub-Continent.

For Indians, who have known for decades if not more, that the mentality of Jihad is just another form of colonialist aspirations, the Modi visit is only natural in exposing the lie of Islamic indigineity in Africa, Israel, and India.

It is no accident that India and Israel’s embrace of one another has come after tens of Sub-Sahara African countries have turned to Israel as a partner and friend. India’s partnership is an erasure and exposure of European implanted lies within the context of their own need to exploit and expand using the land of ancient cultures in Africa, the Middle East, and India.  The Europeans did this by unleashing the Islamic hordes within the wider Arab world through turning one against another and finally setting them upon non-Islamic Africans, Jews, Druze, Arameans, Kurds, Indians, native Pashtun in Afghanistan, and more.

Modi’s visit is about the future and it is about rectifying a narrative that was injected by a self-serving Europe who sought to twist history for its own purposes.

In three days, India and Israel have found themselves again.  They have taken a path away from their former colonial masters who wanted only to divide the two in order to conquer. This partnership will be built on true friendship and goodwill.

To see a touch of just how genuine this is, Netanyahu and Modi met Moshe Holtzberg – an Israeli child who as a toddler survived the 2008 terror attack at a Jewish centre in Mumbai. Moshe, now 11, read out a welcome note for PM Modi, saying “Dear Mr Modi, I love you”.

Modi tweeted this moving image during the visit.

Friendships are built on the little things. It is those little things, from basic respect, mutual work relationships, and truly feeling another’s pain that India and Israel find themselves in a relationship that is both ancient and entirely innovative.  This is the partnership that the next phase of world development can and will be built on.

Posted on

The Humanitarian Paradigm – Answering FAQs (Part 2)

Sequel to the dispelling of  doubts regarding the feasibility – and morality – of largescale, financially incentivized emigration as the only non-kinetic approach for resolution of the Israel-Palestinian impasse.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. -Widely attributed to Winston Churchill

 

Readers will recall that last week I began a two part response to FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) relating to the practical feasibility/moral acceptability of my proposed Humanitarian Paradigm (HP), which prescribes, among other measures, large-scale financially incentivized emigration of the Palestinian-Arabs, living across the pre-1967 lines as the only route to attain long-term survivability for Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

 

To recap briefly

 

In last week’s column, I addressed the question of the overall cost of the funded emigration project, and showed that, given the political will to implement it, it would be eminently affordable – even if Israel had to shoulder the burden alone. If other industrial nations could be induced to participate, the total cost would be an imperceptible percentage of their GDP.

 

I then went on to demonstrate that there is ample evidence indicating a wide-spread desire in large sections of the Palestinian-Arab population to emigrate permanently in search of more secure and prosperous livee elsewhere. This point was underscored by a recent Haaretz article , describing how thousands of Gazans had fled their home to Greece, undertaking perilous risk to extricate themselves from the harrowing hardships imposed on them by the ill-conceived endeavor to foist statehood on the Palestinian-Arabs.  Significantly, according to the Haaretz report, none of them blamed Israel for their plight—but rather the ruling Hamas-regime, which, it will be recalled, was elected by popular vote to replace the rival Fatah faction, ousted because of its corruption and poor governance.

 

Finally, I dealt with the question of the prospective host nations, pointing out that the funded Palestinian-Arab émigrés would not arrive as an uncontrolled deluge of destitute humanity, but as an orderly regulated stream of relatively affluent immigrants spread over about a decade-and-a-half, whose absorption would entail significant capital inflows for the host nation’s economy.  Moreover, given the fact that, globally, migrants total almost a quarter billion, Palestinian-Arab migration of several hundred thousand a year would comprise a small fraction of one percent of the overall number—hardly an inconceivable prospect.  

 

Following this short summary of previously addressed FAQs, we can now move on to tackle several additional ones.

FAQ 4: Won’t fear of fratricide deter recipients?

 

One of the most commonly raised reservations as to the practical applicability of the HP is that potential recipients of the relocation/rehabilitation grants would be deterred from accepting them because of  threats of retribution from their kin-folk who allegedly would view such action as perfidious betrayal of the Palestinian-Arabs’ national aspirations.

 

In contending with this question, it is necessary to distinguish between two possible scenarios, in which such internecine intimidation will be either a phenomenon whose scope is (a) limited; or (b) wide-spread and pervasive.  

 

Clearly, if the former is true, it is unlikely to have any significant inhibiting impact on the conduct of prospective recipients of the relocation/rehabilitation grants.

 

If, however, the assumption is that the latter is the case, several points need to be made:

– If this objection  to the HP is to have any credence, its proponents must present evidence (as opposed to unproven supposition) that potential violent opponents of the HP program have the ability not only to inflict harm on prospective recipients (as opposed to issuing empty threats) , but that they can sustain such ability over time.

 

– In this regard, it should be kept in mind that implementation of the HP entails the disarming, dismantling and disbanding —if need be, coercively—of the ruling Palestinian regime, and reinstating Israeli governance over all territory under Palestinian-Arab control.    

 

 

Inhibiting internecine intimidation

 

The HP is hardly unique with regard to this latter point. All other proffered policy alternatives for the failed, foolhardy two-state formula entail such measures—either by explicit stipulation, or implicit inference—since preserving the current Palestinian regime intact would clearly preclude their implementation.  Indeed, they are even endorsed by some pundits who do not discount the eventual emergence of a Palestinian state, such as Middle East Forum president, Daniel Pipes.

 

Clearly, the dispersal of the central Palestinian governing body, together with the defanging of its armed organs and the deployment of Israeli forces in their stead , will greatly curtail  (although not entirely eliminate) the scope for internecine intimidation and the capacity to dissuade potential recipients of the relocation/rehabilitation grants from availing themselves of the funds.

 

In addition, Israel should task its own formidable military and intelligence services to protect prospective recipients of these grants by identifying, intervening and thwarting attempts to intimidate those seeking to enhance their lives by extricating themselves from the control of the disastrously dysfunctional regime under which they live.

 

Moreover, the international community should be called upon to cooperate with and participate in this principled endeavor to prevent fratricidal elements within Palestinian society from depriving their brethren of the opportunity of better, safer lives. After all, violence against Palestinian-Arabs, who choose to reside within any given host nation, would comprise an intolerable violation of that country’s national sovereignty.  

 

Appalling indictment of “Palestinian” society?  

 

Of course invoking the specter of large-scale fratricide as an impediment to the acceptance of the HP is an appalling indictment of Palestinian-Arab society.

 

After all, the inescapable implication of such an objection to the HP’s practical applicability is that its acceptance by otherwise willing recipients, wishing to avail themselves of opportunity to seek security and prosperity elsewhere, can only be impeded by violent extortion of their kin-folk.

 

Accordingly, if the concern over large-scale fratricide is serious, it is in fact, at once, both the strongest argument in favor of the HP and against the establishment of a Palestinian state.  After all, two unavoidable conclusions necessarily flow from it: (a) any predicted reluctance to accept the relocation/rehabilitating grants would not be a reflection of the free will of Palestinian-Arabs, but rather a coerced outcome that came about despite the fact that it is not; (b) Similarly, the endeavor for a Palestinian state is not one that manifests any authentic desire of the “Palestinian people” but rather one imposed on them, despite the fact that it does not.

 

As a result, any Palestinian-Arab state established under the pervasive threat of lethal retribution against any dissenter will not be an expression of genuine national aspirations but of extortion and coercion of large segments of Palestinian-Arab society, who would otherwise opt for an alternative outcome.

 

In summation then, if the fear of fratricide can be shown to be a tangible threat, it should not be considered a reason to abandon the HP formula. Quite the opposite! It should be considered an unacceptable phenomenon to be resolutely suppressed –by both Israel and the international community—in order to permit the Palestinian-Arab public the freedom of choice to determine their future.

 

FAQ 5: Would funded emigration not be considered unethical “ethnic cleansing”?

 

I have addressed the question of the moral merits of the HP extensively elsewhere (see “Palestine”: Who Has Moral High Ground?), where I demonstrate that the HP blueprint will be the most humane of all options if it succeeds, and the least inhumane if it does not.

 

I shall therefore refrain from repeating much of the arguments presented previously and focus on one crucial issue: The comparative moral merits of the widely endorsed two-state paradigm (TSS) and those of  my proposed Humanitarian Paradigm (HP).

 

Since there is very little doubt (or dispute) as to the domestic nature of any prospective Palestinian state, anyone seeking to disqualify the HP because of its alleged moral shortcomings must be forced to contend with the following question: Who has the moral high-ground?

 

(a) The TSS-proponents, who advocate establishing (yet another) homophobic, misogynistic Muslim-majority tyranny, whose hallmarks would be: gender discrimination, gay persecution, religious intolerance, and political oppression of dissidents? ; or

 

(b) The HP-proponents who advocate providing non-belligerent Palestinian individuals with the opportunity of building a better life for themselves elsewhere, out of harm’s way, free from the recurring cycles of death, destruction and destitution, brought down on them by the cruel, corrupt cliques that have led them astray for decades.

 

Furthermore, TSS advocates should be compelled to clarify why they consider it morally acceptable to offer financial inducements to Jews in Judea-Samaria to evacuate their homes to facilitate the establishment of said homophobic, misogynistic tyranny, which, almost certainly, will become a bastion for Islamist terror; yet they consider it morally reprehensible to offer financial inducements to Arabs in Judea-Samaria to evacuate their homes to prevent the establishment of such an entity?

 

FAQ 6: What about those who remain?

 

This is, of course, a serious question and a detailed response would depend on, among other things, the size of the residual Palestinian-Arab population who refuse any material compensation as an inducement to emigrate.

 

The acuteness of the problem would undoubtedly be a function of its scale. Clearly, the smaller this residual population, the less pressing the need will be to deal with it. For example it seems plausible that if, say, only a hundred thousand Palestinians remain, consideration may well be given to the possibility of offering them Israeli citizenship – subject to stringent security vetting and sworn acceptance of Jewish sovereignty as the sole legitimate source of authority in the land – without endangering the Jewish character of the country.

 

However, it should be remembered that, unlike the two-state approach which advocates perilous concessions, and the one-state prescription which calls for incorporating the Palestinian-Arabs resident across the pre-1967  lines into  Israel’s permanent population, the HP does not involve any cataclysmic irreversible measures.

 

At the heart of the HP program is a comprehensive system of material inducements to foster Palestinian emigration, which includes generous incentives for leaving and harsh disincentives for staying. As detailed elsewhere, such incentives would entail substantial monetary grants, up to 100 years GDP per capita per family in Palestinian terms; while the latter entail phased withdrawal of services (including provision of water, electricity, fuel, port facilities and so on) that Israel currently provides to the Palestinian-Arabs across the pre-1967 lines.

 

Accordingly, should it be found that the initial proposed inducements are ineffective, the former can be made more enticing, and/or the latter more daunting, until the proffered package is acceptable.

 

Seen in this context, it is difficult to envisage that many non-belligerent Palestinian-Arabs would prefer to endure the rigors of discontinued provision of services rather than avail themselves of the generous relocation/rehabilitation funds—especially given the dispersal of the Palestinian regime as an alternative source of such services.

 

FAQ 7 What if the same kind of offer were made to induce Jewish emigration?

 

In addressing this question several points should be borne in mind:

 

The offer would clearly not be made by an Israeli government. After all, the HP is  intended as a measure to: (a)  Ensure – not undermine – the survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews, and (b) Relieve the genuine humanitarian predicament of the Palestinian-Arabs—precipitated by the dysfunctional administration they have been subjected to since the 1993 Oslo process—not Jewish disgruntlement with the imperfect functioning of the Israeli government.

 

Of course, it would be impossible to prevent Arab elements from offering Jews financial inducement to emigrate from Israel, but in this regard it should be recalled that: (a) As a sovereign nation Israel can control the financial flows into the country and impede money from hostile sources reaching Israeli citizens, considerably complicating the transfer and receipt of  funds. (b) Arab governments have been singularly reticent in providing large sums  to advance the “Palestinian cause” and there is little chance (or evidence) that they would advance the hundreds of billions required to finance large scale Jewish emigration;  (c) The overwhelming majority of Israelis enjoy living standards of an advanced post-industrial nation with a GDP per capita around 20 times higher than that in the Palestinian-administered territories; (d) Accordingly, it would be commensurately more difficult to tempt them to leave. Indeed, sums offered would have to be considerably higher to create a comparable incentive, running into millions rather than hundreds of thousands per family. (e) Moreover, a slew of recent polls show the large majority of Israelis are satisfied with their lives – thus the prospect of material incentives to induce large-scale emigration seems remote.  

Urgent Zionist imperative.

 

The HP is the only Zionist-compliant policy prescription that can save Israel from the perilous dangers of the two-state formula and the specter of Lebanonization/Balkanization  inherent in other proffered alternatives. Embarking on its implementation is a Zionist imperative that is both urgent and feasible.